The Beaver (12A) 90 mins **
Given some of Mel Gibson’s recent outbursts, it might not seem a terrible idea to equip the actor with his own personal interlocutor. Hence, perhaps, the unfeasibly bizarre premise of the Jodie Foster-directed The Beaver, which sees Gibson’s depressed toy CEO Walter Black electing to communicate with the world through the hand puppet he finds in a dumpster. Audaciously, the star enters into this conceit with more or less the same reserve he displays upon greeting female LAPD officers, or making pronouncements on the Jewish faith.
Perilously little separates actor from role – from the opening image of Walter Black slumped on a lilo, it’s clear here is a man adrift – yet Gibson makes one half of a credible double-act. When Walter is down, the beaver looks down. When his furry proxy turns against him, Gibson doesn’t hold back from slamming the door on his hand. If the acting work does dry up, he may yet earn selected engagements for himself on the children’s party circuit.
Away from Gibson, Foster – who last directed in 1995 – needs a hit herself, which would explain her film’s concessions to normative behaviour. A subplot involving Walter’s teenage son and his school’s head cheerleader suggests somebody clearly wanted The Beaver to play to the 12A crowd, but for something that tilts at comedy, there’s a lot of attempted suicide. For a heartwarmer about a man trying to reconnect, there’s much despairing banging of heads against walls. Dr. Foster believes in montage as a cure-all, smoothing over any cracks: for much of its running time, this is a film determined not to admit how weird it’s acting.
Scattering these unresolved tensions, The Beaver is too strange to be an outright failure – it might have functioned as a twisted independent feature, and its desire to address the still under-discussed subject of mental illness is laudable – even if its ultimate prognosis remains uncertain. While almost certainly unmarketable theatrically, you wouldn’t discount it from being rediscovered by future Walter Blacks, whether in psychotherapy workshops or – somewhat like the rodent itself – languishing in the DVD bargain-bin.
The Beaver is on selected release.
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